How do NUFC compare in the spending stakes?

It's all about the money!In my last article I bleated on about how I love my figures. I really do. It’s geeky but I’ve spent years compiling them for one thing or another and my love for them stems from that.

So with that in mind I’ve managed to dig out some more for us all to ponder as I continue analysing a transfer window which could have been so much better.

In that last article I plucked out random stats associated by numbers to the transfer window just gone. I said that I’d probably miss something that somebody really wanted to know and that if I had all they had to do was ask and I’d see if I could sort something out for them.

Well one of the questions that was asked was about our spending on transfers and how it stacks up to other clubs and what they have done over the summer and so on. Don’t say I never do anything for you Charlie Prince and Craig Chisholm because here, as requested, are the nuts of what each club has done, what they’ve spent, what they’ve made followed by what they’ve really spent – the net spend if you take the value of what they’ve sold off of the value of the players that they have brought in.

In alphabetical order, here goes.

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Team

Bought (£)

Sold (£)

Balance (£) +/–

Arsenal

56,000,000

79,000,000

-23,000,000

Aston Villa

17,000,000

40,000,000

-23,000,000

Blackburn

13,000,000

18,000,000

-5,000,000

Bolton

7,000,000

7,000,000

0

Chelsea

77,500,000

19,500,000

58,000,000

Everton

0

12,500,000

-12,500,000

Fulham

17,000,000

1,270,000

15,630,000

Liverpool

63,000,000

24,000,000

39,000,000

Manchester City

78,000,000

25,300,000

54,700,000

Manchester United

51,300,000

9,800,000

41,500,000

Newcastle

13,200,000

12,600,000

600,000

Norwich

10,400,000

500,000

9,900,000

QPR

12,000,000

1,000,000

11,000,000

Stoke City

22,000,000

1,000,000

21,000,000

Sunderland

27,450,000

27,000,000

450,000

Swansea

9,250,000

80,000

9,170,000

Tottenham

6,000,000

30,500,000

-24,500,000

West Brom

4,500,000

7,000,000

-2,500,000

Wigan

7,000,000

11,500,000

-4,500,000

Wolves

11,400,000

1,000,000

10,400,000

These figures are compiled using the values given by Sky Sports. Where a fee is undisclosed I’ve had to do some digging to find out what the rumoured fee is. Generally speaking you can find out what the perceived fee is so I’ve used that as the benchmark. As an example, Yohan Cabaye’s fee was undisclosed although it’s reported that he cost around £4.5 million which is what I’ve used. I’ve also discounted the pennies and have only (only!) gone to the nearest £10,000 when calculating transfers. There have been some “SuperMac” type transfers for odd fees although in fairness it’s only been the little known players who have moved onto lower league teams that I’ve had that problem with.

So what can we see from this? Well first off I guess we should start with our own team. The phrase “no capital outlay” is pretty much being demonstrated by us. There is absolutely no need for this to have been the case but nonetheless it’s what Hinge & Bracket upstairs have decided to do. I just wish they’d have told Alan Pardew what they were planning to do as, once again, the decisions of the board have left him in a tricky position as he picks himself up from the floor after having the rug pulled from underneath him.

The total spend for us is £600,000 which is measly in fairness. A shame really when you consider that a cool £20 million outlay combined with the hard nosed approach of the board would have been enough to get us into top ten, maybe even Europa League, contention.

It’s not the worst though. Seven teams made a profit this window, one spent nothing and another one spent less than us in total. That makes us 11th in the net spending tables by my reckoning.

Teams in that top bracket have just done what they always do and spent a fortune, but it’s the teams at our level that I’m interested in. Wolves have spent a bit on two players but it’s Fulham and Stoke who are the biggest spenders in our bracket. Of course it’s worth bearing in mind that their figures are distorted by the signings of £10 million plus players but at the end of the day they have spent the money.

I’ll be perfectly honest. When I was putting this table together I felt that we’d be somewhere near the bottom. I’d be willing to bet that if you were asked the question posed in the title that you’d assume pretty much the same, correct? It surprises me that we aren’t in fairness.

So there you go. Something to digest perhaps? I know it doesn’t justify our blatant lack of ambition, but in a strange way it makes me feel better knowing that other teams have spent less than us. I didn’t think it was possible but apparently it is.

Apologies for the rather crude table. Those who have a background in scripting and coding html will probably tell me it’s shyte, but I don’t have a background in scripting or coding so I’ve just kept it simple enough for me to deal with.

Make what you want of these stats, but before people pipe up with comments like “what a load of crap” or some other really valuable contribution to the discussion, just remember I was asked to do this so if you have any issues with it direct it to Charlie Prince and Craig Chilsholm 😛

People who are saying do we have a stronger team than last year it is too early to judge but on what I have seen the answer is no. Were we not stuffing teams like Aston Villa 6-0 and Sunderland 5-1? Can anyone see goals in this team because at the minute I can’t we had to rely on Ryan Taylor free kicks first two games granted Leon Best scored two against Fulham but at the moment we don’t look dangerous going forward. The points we have picked up are off teams in a poor run of form at the moment and blunt in attack, Sunderland 2 points in 3, Arsenal 1 point in 3 (and stuffed 8-2 off Man Utd) and Fulham 1 point in 3 so we can’t really say our defence has been properly tested yet. I believe the defence also lacks decent cover and could struggle with a couple of injuries. People also say our passing is better but all I have seen in the majority of games so far this season is hoofball. Hopefully this will change and the players will be amazing but at this moment in time I would say we had a stronger team last season.

Have to disagree with ya lualua.
Its not just been hoof ball.
We actually did try and do some passing v fulham, but we just aren’t very good at it yet.
Rooney has scored many goals with the ball hoofed over the top, its a good tactic to use sometimes.Otherwise you become predictable and one dimensional, a bit like arsenal. They are great at passing the ball around but it doesn’t get them the results they want.
We really need a creative mf that can mix things up, and I do think we are working towards that. We just need to keep our players fit and injury freee as much as possible

Thad @ 75 I agree with your comment in a way because your right it does not matter how much we spend if we have the quality in the right areas but I personally don’t think we have at the moment a bit of money spent could have given us stability and helped us progress in this league, is Sammy Ameobi a winger or striker because all the games I have seen him so far have been from the wing but he has been scoring goals. I think your comment to Michael Laudrup was a little unfair because he makes a valid point the table makes it look that we are investing in the team but in reality we made a massive profit in the transfer window before. A more balanced look at how we compare to other clubs within the Ashley era would be to take figures for every year Ashley has been in charge but I don’t think Toonsy would like that task I know I wouldn’t lol.

Free transfers Are NOT FREE!!! You can quite easily add another 5-8million. I wish people would start adding that in to the cost because 3 players certainly didn’t just turn up for free. That to me takes it upto to £20 mil spent, plus we know there is £10 million (+agent and signing on fees) available for the right striker. Personally I’m pleased we have kept that as opposed to buying our 9th choice.

Add in Tiotes new contract, upgrades to SjP and the new £35 million sports direct sign and it seems the numbers actually add up.

All I want to see at SJP is progression and I can see the team evolving into a young, quick and skillfull team while also paying off that lovely 52000 stadium extension (yup that’s where the rest of our money is going to peeps, and with an interest free loan it’s getting paid off £10 million a year quicker!)

That’s a fair comment Beardsley’s Boots but do you think we have a Rooney type striker at the club? All of our strikers are quite slow accept for Lovenkrands so they are not going to break an offside trap and the big guys we do have are not great at winning the ball in the air imho. Strikers like Ameobi, Ba and Best are better with the ball at their feet which is why we need the passing game if we had different types of strikers at the club then we could play a mixed passing game of long ball and short passing. The players like you said at the moment don’t seem capable of playing the type of game that is going to get the best out of our striker’s. That is why I think investment in a quick striker who can score goals should have been our priority.

Just wanted to say Beardsley Boots I commend you on the fact that although you differ with me in opinion you are civil in your response to me that is the way I think we should communicate with each other there is too much animosity between people the one thing that we all have in common is we love NUFC.

I can`t let this go before i go to sleep.
Pardew has got an impossible job, but for me he is doing it better under the circumstances than KK/ Hoots/ Shearer etc. would have done.!
Get behind him and the team, be`cos it isn`t full of highly paid tossers we had under Sheps regime!!
I still maintain we have a better squad than last year, until Nov then we will know for sure!:-) thats for B. Dave

Better than Hoots? Hmm… Dunno on that one. Didn’t somebody on this blog do a big analysis of their records and find them comparable? Don’t remember, really. I liked Hughton better personally, but I’m not to sure managerially.